what is the Law with regards to shooting pheasant with an air rifle?

[SandyB]

Aye, dumb critters they are - and suicidal also. They hide in the hedge waiting for you to drive past then try to cross just as you reach them. Seems their one objective in life is to bust your headlights. Gun not needed around here.

Oh, how true and speaking from first hand experience.
Not a cheap replacement

[walnutfarmmick]

In a word no, they're classed as Game, and have closed seasons and cannot be shot on Sundays' BASC extract below:

Sunday and Christmas Day Shooting

England and Wales

No game may be killed or taken in any county on Sunday or Christmas Day. Game for the purposes of this section means pheasant, partridge, red grouse, black grouse and hare.

Orders prohibiting the shooting of wildfowl on Sundays made under sections 2 and 13 of the Protection of Birds Act 1954 still in existence are in the following counties (or parts of counties in existence before the 1974 local authority re-organisation): Anglesey, Brecknock, Caernarvon, Carmarthen, Cardigan, Cornwall, Denbigh, Devon, Doncaster, Glamorgan, Great Yarmouth County Borough, Isle of Ely, Leeds County Borough, Merioneth, Norfolk, Pembroke, Somerset, North and West Ridings of Yorkshire.

On the first of September,
One Sunday morn,
I shot a hen pheasant
in standing corn
without a licence!
Imagine if you can
such a trio of crimes
against God and man.


Probably traditional (and definitely not a confession)

ATVB, Mick

[missfire]

no its not good form to shoot the peasants

[AirMad]

What absolute bull.... pheasants are fair game with an airgun! Rabbits are cleanly taken at 40 yds with head shots and modern airguns along with a good scope in the hands of a seasoned hunter can be easily take pheasants to 30 yards and beyond, head shots being a must. As long as they are in season and your permissions are in order and you are capable go for it. Very tasty they are too. There will be couple complimenting the turkey on my table this year. However you can see why shooting them with an airgun is frowned upon,they cost money to rear as captive sport for people with more money than sense. Gamekeepers really get their knickers in a twist if non payers are having a bit of sport for the pot. If they are on your permissions and it is ok by the owners then shoot them as they eat as well as rabbits. I know of several stud farms where pheasants are hated with a vengance. The clatter of them rising at the feet of thoroughbred horse has been the downfall of many a thrown jockey, and in some cases injury to bolting horses. And stud farms can be a good source for permission if they have pheasant problem.

[Buckphutt32]

My Grandad, God rest his soul was forever borrowing my air rifle to shoot pheasant, woodpigeon and the like...I don`t see the harm in shooting pheasant if you indeed plan to place it on a dinner plate with a few roast potatoes, carrots, peas and gravy and eat it!!!...

[secretagentmole]

To date I have found a series three land rover a very very success full projectile. The square front and lack of aero dynamics really helps take them out of the air. The roof rack does a perticually good job too (not so good with high value furniture like items up there mind you). I have no idea of the ftlbs of a 1 1/2 tons of land rover doing 60mph, but its always a quick, even if not very clean kill :-) Normally get about one a month. Mind you I have lost 2 wing mirrors to the buggers!

Honestly with rearguard to the notion its not sporting to maim them in flight with a shotgun so your dogs can then have a chew, well i really don't have much of a answer to that one :-(

Most of my childhood transport seemed to involve travelling along the verges as my dad attempted decapitation with the metal number plate of a Vauxhall Victor FD2000. The "thuck" of head on number plate told you when dinner was ready to be picked up, I was trained to get the bird, check the head was either loose and flopping about or removed and chuck in the boot of the car! Happy days!

[sunndog]

I have to laugh at the irony of people who say shooting pheasants in the head with an adequately powered airgun at a sensible range is unethical but that it is acceptable with pigeons.Is the pheasant more deserving of a more noble() fate?
Remember that the pheasant was imported and bred for the purpose of being shot for goodness sake.For every pheasant 'dead in the air' with a shotgun how many hit the ground running with a broken wing or continue flying with several pellets in the rump or gut ?
Now I am not knocking any kind of shooting,since,as a participant,it would be very hypocritical of me but I would suggest that people have a good think before getting on their moral high horse.--Shaun.

as a life long hunter and ex keeper. this say's it all IMHO.....well put fella

[Slurm]

ive shot a small number of pheasants with my air rifle, alway a headshot. I have no qualms about admitting if the landowner doesnt mind and I am able to ensure a headshot I will kill one, sorry to say but its my favourite meat.

[Geoffc]

As I put in my earlier post, if it's a good headshot, and I have permission then I'm happy to take a Pheasant with an air rifle. 'Sporting shot' doesn't come into it for me. I want to eat the bloody thing not stroke my vanity as a hunter. That also means I want to walk over and pick it up, I don't want it running into an overgrown bramble ditch with a pellet in the breast. Pointless.

[AdamA]

Most of my childhood transport seemed to involve travelling along the verges as my dad attempted decapitation with the metal number plate of a Vauxhall Victor FD2000. The "thuck" of head on number plate told you when dinner was ready to be picked up, I was trained to get the bird, check the head was either loose and flopping about or removed and chuck in the boot of the car! Happy days!

Just imagining how much more fun it must have been to open said car boot with one prior to your floppy neck training that had regained conciousness!

As to catapult launched squirrels, I will happily make the catapult, but no way in hell am i going to load it. I keep pet gerbils, they can bite clean through thick welding gauntlets, i can only imagine what a squirrels jaws are capable of!

[shaun the sheep]

Its always struck me as odd that the definition of 'sporting' is being "fair and generous in one's behavior or treatment of others"....
However, for the shooting community, taking a single shot gun to a bird on the wing is considered 'un-sporting', but a head-shot through cross-hairs is somehow fair & generous when I can't think of something more predjudicial really.

Not passing any kind of comment other than the paradox of the terminology...

Shooting(any live quarry),if we would all care to admit,is not fair! We,as the dominant species,decide we want to do it.Is it neccessary?Well,vermin controllers,such as myself,think it is.People employed in all aspects of the shooting industry,keepers,estate owners,shooting suppliers,RFD`s etc think the same..
However,after making the decision to shoot any creature we owe it to such bird or animal to at least strive to make its demise as quick and clean as possible. Bar blasting it with an expanding centre-fire round at 30 ish yards a well executed head shot on any small game,at a sensible distance,with an accurate and close to max legal power air rifle(or rimfire even) for me at least,is the most efficient method.I have to admit that I find it slightly more satisfying to drop a flying pigeon dead with a shotgun than to drop one dead out of a tree with an airgun BUT the shot to clean kill rate with the latter is much higher.--Shaun.

[ChrisH00]

Reasons for shooting at live animals can either be for Vermin Control, For the Pot (hunting for food), or for amusement. The first can claim the moral high ground with it being a necessity for disease control and farm management, the second console themselves that they 'eat what they kill' (though there may be better ways of obtaining it), but the third really have to question their motives and whether shooting paper targets might not be a more humane pastime? Many try to combine reasons 1 & 3 or 2& 3 to excuse the act.

[bighit]

what you have to also remember is if you shoot on a tenant farmers land like i do ,and they have paid pheasant shoots you may not be allowed to shoot any game birds unless you have permission from the factors . im only allowed shoot them if they are on the farmhouse land and destroying veggies and so on. i have to them leave the pheasant there and inform the game keeper

not sure if its how all tenant farmers land rules go but its what is mainly done up here

[secretagentmole]

Just imagining how much more fun it must have been to open said car boot with one prior to your floppy neck training that had regained conciousness!

As to catapult launched squirrels, I will happily make the catapult, but no way in hell am i going to load it. I keep pet gerbils, they can bite clean through thick welding gauntlets, i can only imagine what a squirrels jaws are capable of!

Why do you think my father trained me to make sure it was dead? We could tell the damned thing was alive an drunning round the boot, so dad had to take the back seat out, reach through and wring it's neck! After that I was trained to make sure the neck was broken! Any doubts and to the driver's window where dad would do the honours! When I was about 10 he taught me how to pluck and gut the bird! Great days!

[secretagentmole]

Reasons for shooting at live animals can either be for Vermin Control, For the Pot (hunting for food), or for amusement. The first can claim the moral high ground with it being a necessity for disease control and farm management, the second console themselves that they 'eat what they kill' (though there may be better ways of obtaining it), but the third really have to question their motives and whether shooting paper targets might not be a more humane pastime? Many try to combine reasons 1 & 3 or 2& 3 to excuse the act.

I find that doing reason 1 for reason 3 provides reason 2! I enjoy hunting with my air rifle. I admit it. I also like eating nice fresh meat that I know has been killed as humanely as possible and treated in a manner I find hygienic and stored afterwards in conditions I know are suitable for the storage of food.

As previously stated on my permissions any pheasants are viewed as reason 1, vermin, as nobody has bred them for shooting on the farmland I have permission on. I have also left them with the permission holders (albeit unplucked an with guts in), as they like a nice pheasant dinner too. I make no excuses I enjoy hunting with my air rifle, I like eating meat, I like eating food I have caught! I also eat fish I have caught and gutted!

No excuses, just a nice hot dinner!